Llorenç Villalonga (Palma de Mallorca, 1897-1980) was an important exponent of Majorcan narrative in the 20th century. Coming from a family of rural landowners, he studied medicine and began to publish articles in 1924. His first novel, Mort de dama (1931), courted controversy, though Bearn o la sala de les nines (1956 Spanish, 1961 Catalan) is perhaps his best-known work. Andrea Víctrix is considered to be his most ambitious novel. He died at home after a long illness.
P. Louise Johnson (Matlock, 1970) has been at the University of Sheffield since 1996. She discovered Llorenç Villalonga while an undergraduate at St John’s College, Oxford, and subsequently wrote her doctorate on his work. In 2002 her monograph La tafanera posteritat: assaigs sobre Llorenç Villalonga was awarded the first Premi Casa Museu-Llorenç Villalonga. Louise has published widely on Villalonga, and taught Andrea Víctrix (1974) to a generation of students who have been variably receptive to this camp, dystopian vision of Mallorca, and satire on mid-twentieth-century politics and social mores.